'A Visiting, Unquiet, Unquakerish Season'

“Christmas, too, is come, which always puts a rattle into my morning skull. It is a visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with company.” 

A sample of the inveterately absurdist Charles Lamb. He often poked harmless fun at his Quaker friend (Friend friend?) Bernard Barton, an aspiring poet. His letter is dated December 23, 1822. Lamb, in fact, relished the right sort of company – those gifted with story-telling, general amusement and tippling. It’s the time of year I most enjoy company. In no other season does it feel less obligatory, more gratuitous. Christmas relaxes those taut emotional sphincters. It’s time to chat with the proselytizers at the door and the neighbors who irritate you. Lamb concludes:

 

“The ‘compliments of the time’ to you, should end my letter; to a Friend, I suppose, I must say the ‘sincerity of the season’: I hope they both mean the same. With excuses for this hastily penned note, believe me, with great respect, C. Lamb.”

 

With all my “sincerity of the season,” Merry Christmas to all the readers of Anecdotal Evidence. P. Kurp.